I dream of a simple battery operated zwave zone thermostat

[Thrag]

The one major part of my home automation system that remains to be implemented is the thermostats. I have a house with hydronic radiant floor heating which has six zones. Each zone currently has a simple battery operated thermostat. A while back I purchased one of the new CT30 thermostats to see if they would be an adequate replacement but it's not quite right for my needs.

I want a thermostat that is:

1. Z-wave (or z-wave beaming)
2. Battery operated.
3. Just two wire (no c-wire).
4. Reports battery level.
5. Reports when it cycles on or off.

That's really all I need. The CT30 does not appear to do either #4 or #5. It doesn't even report correctly if the heat is on or off when polled. Unlike the CT30 I don't need something that does every type of heating and cooling system possible, just a simple relay switch.

Does anyone know of such a thing? Does any company have something like this in the works?

Is there anyone else here who is looking for this same thing? I am tempted to write to manufacturers like 2Gig and Danfoss (who makes my current thermostats and appears to have one z-wave product already, but it is for steam heaters). If someone would make one of these I'd buy six of them today, if other people are looking for something similar it would be nice to be able to say I'm not the only one who is looking for such a device when I do contact manufacturers.

[rmasonjr]

From what I understand, the battery option is seriously depleted when the Z-Wave radio is used, so the manufacturers cut some corners in light of saving on battery life.

You probably should consider getting an HVAC person to see if you have a C-Wire option if you have need of 6 thermostats - or at least being able to run a separate transformer. If you have C-Wire, your options for Z-Wave controlled thermostats would improve greatly.

[gschwendtner]

I tried doing this on my 2 wire oil boiler and failed. My plan was to use the aquastat xformer to provide the 24V of power for the thermostat. I used a unused wire and ran it back to the common on the transformer and it worked great until the unit called for heat and it would drop the 24V for the thermostat and shut down the system.

I then looked around and found that the GE IS-ZW-TSTAT-100 "could" run on the installed AA batteries. I hooked it and it worked great. It would drop the 24V when heat was called for and stayed running. Then I discovered that when the unit ran on batteries the thermostat ran cooler than when running on 24 VAC. This caused issues because the house got 2-3 degrees warmer than my set point.

I ended up pulling another set of wires upstairs to my A/C air handler thermostat and now only have one thermostat. it appears that the trane thermostat I am using powers it's self from the 24VAC A/C side when you cut the internal jumper.